New Study: BPA May Make You Stupid and Depressed

Coincidentally with the release of the National Toxicology Program report, a new study reports that researchers from the Yale School of Medicine and Guelph University exposed African Green monkeys on the Island of St. Kitts to low levels of Bisphenol A for a month. They found that even low doses of BPA slow down the synapses in the brain.

"It dramatically impairs the formation of synapses in the regions of the brain important to learning," biomedical science professor Neil MacLusky [of the University of Guelph] said. "These findings are worrisome because BPA is one of the most widely-used chemicals in the world." ::CTV

According to Medical News Today, This synaptic loss may cause memory/learning impairments and depression, according to study results published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

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"Our primate model indicates that BPA could negatively affect brain function in humans," said study co-author Tibor Hajszan, M.D., associate research scientist in Yale Ob/Gyn. "Based on these new findings, we think the EPA may wish to consider lowering its 'safe daily limit' for human BPA consumption."

Hajszan said that although daily exposure of an average person to BPA usually does not reach the level that was applied in this study, human exposure to BPA is not limited to a single month, but rather is continuous over a lifetime. "The negative effect of BPA may also be amplified when estradiol levels are naturally lower than in healthy adults. That is why exposure to BPA may particularly be risky in the case of babies and the elderly."